A Straggler in Markarth
by RegalMisfortune
Summary: Something's always going on in Markarth. The newest resident certainly doesn't help matters. (Horrible title. Horrible summary. Starts six years before Skyrim. I have no idea what I'm doing. Please sent help. Or a dragon).
1. Chapter 1

**Edit (11/24): Due to a suggestion brought up in the reviews, I've decided to remove all the notes, lore, and previous explanations that were here previously as it was a bit much (3K+ of nonsense, whoops). I am going to go through them and decide which explanations/notes to keep, and I will edit them into the chapter at a later date. Please note that this does not effect the content of the chapter itself. Any edits aside from grammar/spelling will strictly be author notes and explanations only. **

**I apologize in advance if you didn't read the extra bits before I edited them out. However, I may have been a bit overenthusiastic and wrote a bit too much on things that did not contribute to the story itself. If you are curious as to what was written previously, I can give you a short run-down, however, you didn't miss much. If there is anything specific you want explained, I will be more than happy to do so.  
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**Edit (11/27): I've decided to place explanations on my OC, including actions, speech, and other traits in the next chapter. I know some people are confused as to why he does or says some things, and it will be easier for me to include it in the chapter itself rather than a brief description as a note.**

**Disclaimer: I do NOT own the Elder Scrolls series, the items, the characters, or the lore involved with it, nor do I own any mods that are mentioned within the story, both intentionally and not. This story is to not earn profit, but for the mere amusement of the writer and the readers who stumble upon it.**

**Warnings: Possibly some language, and a lot more text.**

**Notice: I've combined the first three chapters into one. It is quite obvious where the first chapter should've ended and the next begun. However, if you like this kind of condensed format instead of spread out over several chapters I think I can accommodate for that. Also apologies for any grammar/spelling errors. I wrote this in bits and pieces over several days so some things will have slipped through the cracks of my proof-reading.**

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><p><span>The Bargain of a Lifetime<span>

"I want to buy the abandoned house, the one next to the Trader."

There were very simple rules in Markarth. The law of the Empire was to abide by, the Jarl's laws were to be followed, the guards were to be listened to and respected, don't piss off the Silver-Blood family, do not mention the Forsworn presence within the city- or the Forsworn in general for that matter, and last, but the most important, was to never talk about the abandoned house just inside the gates. The last was not a written law, nor did it seem of any significance in the eyes of those who came unaware into the city. However the mere mention of the place sent shivers down the spines of the citizens of the above ground Dwemer city and any interest of the place by outsiders was quickly squashed by either convenient lack of any knowledge of the place or widely twisted tales of blood-curdling screams and vicious ghosts of the previous trespassers of the place who failed to escape the building once passing through the doorway and never to be seen again.

It was hard to determine exactly when this avoidance of the place began, or the true reason how it became so. Many rumors- albeit whispered in secret in hushed tones- pointed to a dark and twisted tale of Old Gods and a curse placed upon the structure. These all sprung from the Reachmen, whom many still followed the Old Ways rather than converting to the better divinity of the Nords or the Empire. Non-Reachmen suspected necromancy or Daedra, although even they tended to favor the word of the Reachmen, as the case of the abandoned place drew its sources from beyond even the Great War and the Reachmen knew more about the lands they lived on than any other. From even the oldest of minds within the city- or at least out of those who survived the Markarth Incident, have only known the abandoned house as empty and avoided, and fools who poked their nose into the place ended up going missing and after a few months their deaths were written off without any search of the place. No matter whose hands Markarth was in, no guard was dumb enough to search the place, and no ruler was cruel enough to make them. And so the house-shaped Void in the city was tread around lightly- something everyone agreed on, from Reachman to Orc to Nord.

Yet on this fateful day in Midyear of 4E 195, standing before the Jarl Igmund, three years into his position, his Steward and uncle Raerek, and the guards who typically patrolled the area or guarded the Jarl, was a someone not quite yet a man, yet too old to be a child, who broke the most important and oldest unwritten, unspoken law of Markarth with such blase that it stunned the occupants into uneasy silence.

He was a Reachman, that was a fact straight from his accent. His skin was sun-kissed from the hours under the open sky of the Reach, and he was too short and not burly around the shoulders enough to be a Nord. His hair drifted down and around his head in auburn waves, crashing at the nape of his neck in small curls, the color too bright to be a Redguard. There were no warpaint or tribal tattoos present on his face like many of the Reachmen both inside and outside of Markarth, making it hard to determine which side of the Reach he came from. At first it was obvious that he was no elf, but at the continued staring as the young man's statement hung in the deadly silent air, features of his face began to pull out the more elven look of his heritage blending in behind the appearance of Man. His nose was smaller and smooth, ending in a more elegant rounded point rather than his nostrils flaring out or looking like his nose had been broken two or three times. The shape of his eyes were more elven in their slightly almond shape, the lids pulling into a slight narrowing rather than a Man's wider, rounder gaze. Even the tips of his ears, although mostly hidden under the hair, had a slight point to them in tribute to the elves' pointy and angular appearances. However, his jaw was more rounded and his chin short rather than jutting and long, his cheekbones weren't high enough to possibly to consider him Mer than Man, and his head was too round and not large enough to be bloated by a Mer's ego. His eyes, however, was what threw the Jarl off for a second. The left orb was a shade of green reminding him of the junipers growing all around the Reach while the right was the color of the amber sap that bled from the pines. Unusual to have two different colored eyes, and it was slightly unnerving to gaze into a color that was a bit too close to a certain group of Mer's than he wished, but the young man's lopsided grin and carefree posture was what proved that this boy wasn't a Mer, or even half of one, but instead simply inherited more the Mer side of the Breton people than most of his kind aside magical prowess.

His wear was what definitely tied him as a Breton rather than a half elf. He wore simple clothing, the green vest pulled over a white wool shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His trousers were brown, the fabric indeterminable, and his boots were pulled to his knees of a lighter brown cow leather. A large knapsack was drawn across his shoulders with an unstrung longbow- the craftsmanship hard to see from the angle the Jarl was seated- tied to the sack. The overall condition of his clothing was well used but taken care of, judging from the patches of slightly different colored fabric on the knees of his trousers and the slightly fraying straps of his knapsack. No Mer would be caught dead in such shabby attire, especially the damn elves who were slowly digging their claws into Skyrim, and the Dark Elves tended to remain on the other side of High Hrothgar, so there wasn't much to compare to.

All in all, he was a young Reachman who yet somehow out of all of the Reach was the sole person who lived there who either didn't know the truth of the matter behind the abandoned house or simply was too stupid to realize the potential danger of it. This was the fact that had everyone silently questioning and then examining the young man before them to see if it was through ignorance or arrogance that he decided it was a good idea to broach the topic to them.

The Steward was the first to recover, the older man's eyes narrowing at the young man before them. "Do not joke about, boy. Do you know who you're speaking to?"

The young man's smile did not fade in the slightest as the dual-hued eyes turned towards the elder. "I am speaking to Steward Raerek and Jarl Igmund of Markarth. Mostly to you, Steward, because I want to buy a house and you handle that sort of arrangement from what I've been told. How's six thousand?"

"What-?! No, no boy like yourself could possibly have-"

But the young man had ignored the Steward's spluttering as he dropped to one knee, removing the knapsack and setting it on the cold Underkeep floor in one smooth motion. He moved the longbow aside- an ashwood make now that it was completely visible, slightly worn but well taken care for- setting it onto the floor beside him as the young man began rifling through the bag. The guards shifted closer, not in impending threat but in almost horrified curiosity that someone so young would march up and ask to buy the unspoken abandoned house and try to pull it off without it being a complete hoax.

The Breton made a small "ah ha!" noise as he found what he was looking for, pulling out an impressive drawstring bag from within the confines of the knapsack. The bag was almost bursting as to how stuffed it was, and the grating of metal on metal as he repositioned it in his hands proved that there was coin inside and not anything else. "Six thousand," the boy stated again, holding the bag out before him with both hands. "Or, I think there is. If it isn't enough I got some silver jewelry I can pawn off- don't worry, I didn't steal them; I made them. I can prove that too if you want, but I really would like that house."

"Do you even know what that house is? Why it is what it is?" The Jarl couldn't remain quiet any longer, and no one else was speaking up, not with the Steward still spluttering (now over the fact that the boy was in fact, quite serious, and had the coin to prove it).

"I heard," the young Breton replied with a casual shrug. "Daedra, ghosts, cultists, and Old Gods' curses don't scare me much, and I don't see how this can be any loss to you. I got the coin, paying upfront and probably more than the place's actually worth, 'specially with it being empty for so long. The building is occupied for as long a I live and I get to pay the taxes every year like a good citizen. If I somehow tragically die you still got the coin."

The boy was determined, the Jarl had to give him that. Determined and gutsy. No one in all his years, nor from what he remembered of his father's years, ever thought about buying the house, and this was quite possibly the first time any ruler of this city had the opportunity to sell it. And this boy was willing to pay what was most likely double, if not triple the place's worth. Even Vlindrel Hall, when it was sold the last time, was worth only eight thousand, and that was when it was freshly empty. It was anyone's guess at the condition of the abandoned house in question. He couldn't even offer the boy a different place, as there had been an influx of residents in the last few months and there were simply no other houses or homes for sale, not even outside the city.

The Jarl gazed towards his Steward, and the man stared back with a "You possibly cannot be considering this" look, which the Jarl ignored in favor of turning eyes back towards the Breton before him.

"Tell you what, boy- you keep your gold. If you are able to refurbish and live in the house for a week, you can keep the place." The "if you survive" that was omitted was clear as day, but it didn't seem to faze the boy none.

The Breton's face almost broke at how wide his smile got, his dual-hued eyes glinting with delight. "Thank you, Jarl sir!" he exclaimed, dropping the money back into his knapsack and pulled both the knapsack and his bow up with him as he shot to his feet. "Even if I do get killed I'll make sure to leave the six thousand for you in consideration of your kindness!" And before anyone else could react the young Breton had bounded away from the throne room in glee, down the stone steps and out the doors into the sunlight.

"You'd better go after him, tell the other guards of the situation, Argis," the Jarl stated, leaning back in his throne to look over at one of his guards, who bowed his head before heading after the young Breton. After all, the boy did leave without even getting a key (although he highly doubted there even was one left), and he didn't want to see the boy be dragged back up to the throne room for trying to pick the lock on the door to get inside.

It wasn't until the large doors to the Understone Keep closed behind Argis when both the Jarl and the Steward realized that through the shock and rolling ride that happened to be a house sale, they forgot to ask who the young man was in case they had to bury the poor boy.

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><p>Argis found the boy at the doorstep of the abandoned house, his knapsack and bow on the ground as he knelt before the large metal door, peering intently at the lock. The whole situation threw the Nord in a loop, not knowing whether to be amazed at the young man's determination or worried for his sanity. He may be a Nord, but he was just as much as a Reachman as any Breton in the city, so he knew the danger of the abandoned home. By Oblivion, he had been one of the unfortunate eye witnesses (or rather, ear witnesses) to the last poor sod who managed to get his way into the building. The man had been drunk and it was raining pretty heavily, and the man forgot which house was his and somehow managed to pick the lock when his key didn't work. Argis and two other guards had been heading to the Silver-Blood Inn after their shift when they saw the man enter the house, the door shutting and locking behind him before they could reach him. They had heard the awful, muffled screaming and the eerie silence that hung afterwards, and the man never came back out of the door. The other two guards had gotten reassigned shortly afterwards- one to Solitude, the other to Rorikstead, and Argis, who couldn't bear to leave his home, had nightmares of the place for a month after the incident.<p>

He kept a respectable distance back from the Breton, watching as the auburn haired man began rummaging through his knapsack. The noise of the nearby market had died when the citizens began to become aware of someone was mucking around with the forbidden house, either staring in silence or quietly slipping away to gossip to the others of the city who had yet to see the situation.

"Did he really buy that place?" one guard whispered to Argis, one of the few who had gotten the guts to get closer as everyone else remained several feet back from Argis, and he was standing a good distance away like the place was going to explode at any second.

"He did," Argis grunted, folding his arms over his chest as he turned his gaze to the Breton boy, who was now fishing a pick through the lock. In truth the boy was given the house rather than buying it, but the rumor mills would pick that up in the near future and so Argis saw no need to correct it. After all, the rumors had spread this far, and it had only been a mere fifteen minutes since the boy bounded out of the Understone Keep.

The place fell quiet again aside from the rushing water from the waterfalls and the streams that ran throughout the city as the citizens of Markarth watched the boy tinker with the lock. A growing crowd just outside of the Inn mulled about, many silently placing bets on how long the Breton would last once he got into the building. Argis grew uneasy, shifting uncomfortably before finding purchase against a short stone wall that he leaned against, his brown eyes joining the multitude in watching the young Breton apprehensively. The boy must be a bit touched in the head, but the Nord couldn't help but feel nervous for the boy, as he certainly didn't look it, humming as he fiddled with the lock. Only the very brave or the very stupid would tamper with the abandoned house, and only a man with nothing to lose would tamper with it in broad daylight.

There was a faint sound of snapping metal and a quiet curse, the boy pulling the broken lockpick out of the still locked door. Argis watched, with slight amusement, as the boy crossed his arms over his chest, glaring at the lock as if it had offended him for daring to break his lockpick and was now mocking him by remaining locked. It didn't last long though as the boy pressed his face close to the lock, almost as if he was trying to peer through it. Argis could almost see the cogs in his head churn as the boy thought of his next course of action.

Suddenly the boy hopped to his feet, startling the crowd across the stream as he turned and walked right up to Argis. It struck the Nord how small the boy really was; the Breton barely reached his chest, yet his face and his eyes put him somewhere a bit older than a mere boy, but younger than the Nord. His dual-hued eyes seemed to stare right through the taller man, holding a secretive, mischievous glint about them as if the Breton knew all of Argis' secrets without him uttering a word. Yet his lips quirked into a smile, his posture relaxed and nonthreatening, nor did he seem intimidated by the Nord's superior height and bulk or the weapons he carried in plain view.

"Hello," the Breton spoke, a Reach accent lacing his words. "I'm in need of a hammer and a wedge. Do you know where I could get one?"

"You...wish to break the door down?" Argis asked slowly, quirking an eyebrow at the strange question. He didn't think the boy could even lift a warhammer that high let alone swing it with enough strength to batter a Dwemer door down. He doubted even a giant could pull off such a feat.

The Breton grinned, shaking his head and causing his auburn locks to rustle about. "Oh no. Not that kind of hammer! I need a smithy's hammer. I have to pop the lock off. The hinges are on the inside so I can't possibly remove the entire door, and there's no possible way to break these doors down by banging on it, and even if there was it'd be a pain to replace. Besides, the locks are meant to come out and be replaced."

It made sense, Argis reasoned, his eyes going from the boy to the door behind him. Dwemer doors were both simple and complex; large metal sheets with a box for a lock and handle, although that depended on door to door. Some doors simply swung one way or another with a crossbar used to keep the door from opening and closing, but those were rarely seen in exterior doors. It would be easier to make a door even more impossible to break into by simply changing the lock rather than the entire door, but he didn't quite understand how it would be possible to change the lock. He had never seen or heard anyone of changing the locks, but he had seen doors being removed and replaced because keys have gone missing. There was probably a huge stock of Dwemer doors just sitting in some unused part of the Undertone Keep, and they would be a pain in the ass to carry up and down all those flights of stairs just to replace one door that refused to open. So Argis found himself nodding in agreement to at least humoring the boy of his 'lock popping' idea and stepped over a small footbridge to the Silver-Blood Inn to tell one of the guards to get the requested tools from Ghorza gra-Bagol. The guard and those who heard seemed perplexed by the request but the man jogged off nevertheless and Argis returned to the Breton.

"Be here in a bit," Argis grumbled, watching the Breton hum and bobbed his head in thanks, although his attention was back to the door, only partially listening. "What's your name anyway, boy?"

"Hm?" the Breton's attention was snapped from the door, the dual-hued orbs turning to gaze up at the Nord. "Oh, did I forget to introduce myself? The name's Silas, and I'm nineteen, not quite a boy anymore." He didn't seem to perturbed at being called a boy though, his voice holding an almost tired, amused tone, as if he had heard it so many times he simply gave up correcting people. He was certainly tiny enough to be thought of a boy still, relatively short even for a Breton his age, and nineteen was still quite young, so it was easy to see where the confusion was coming from. Argis himself was only twenty-three, but his bulky height, braided blond hair and growing beard made him more of a Nord man than a boy (although that didn't stop some of his comrades amongst the guards or those who knew him since he was a child from continuing to refer to him as a such).

"'Silas' is not a Reach name," Argis pointed out after a moment of silence, once he realized that he had never heard of such a name from a Reachman, let alone a Breton. It sounded more of an Imperial name than any. Yet Silas didn't seem offended by that either, shrugging almost helplessly as his smile became sheepish.

"Ma wanted something unusual," he replied, rubbing the back of his neck. "Could be worse, I reckon. Could have an impossible to pronounce Sootie or Pussyfoot name."

Argis didn't know what a 'Sootie' or a 'Pussyfoot' was, but at this point he didn't want to ask. Instead he merely nodded in silent agreement before introducing himself almost as an afterthought, to which he got a cheerful "Hello Argis!" in response from the young Breton.

It was a shame, Argis mused, after the hammer and wedge were brought from the forge and Silas returned to the door, that the Breton would probably not survive the trial week for his home. He seemed friendly; quirky, but friendly nevertheless. He didn't seem to mind how Argis didn't speak much, nor did he seemed annoyed with the attention he got from the crowd beside the Inn. In fact, he acted as if there wasn't a crowd at all, humming under his breath as he positioned the wedge.

It only took three strikes of loud ear-grating metal-on-metal before the box-like lock fell off the door and onto the ground with a dull thud, a similar one sounding from the inside. The sound startled the crowd by the Inn and Argis felt a flutter of awe for a second. It seemed so easy it was almost laughable. Was that all it took just to make one of the Dwemer doors to open? Did the ancient Dwemer made it so simple to unlock doors just for people to over-complicate it later, so they would get so frustrated that they would just leave the locked door alone when it only took a few swings of a tiny hammer and a wedge to unlock it? It was...completely genius. And mildly frustrating. Really, someone by now should've figured it out. In any case, there was now a nice square-shaped hole in the door, devoid of lock and free to open. Silas whooped loudly. The others drew back as if the sudden yell was going to summon a fire-breathing, colossal Daedra that was going to come bursting forth from unconventionally unlocked door.

"You want to come in, Argis?" the Breton asked, leaving his knapsack, hammer, and wedge behind and already pushing the door open with a metallic groan coming from the hinges. Argis knew better than to tempt fate and shook his head, to which he got another shrug and a "Suit yourself. Be back in a sec," before the Breton pushed the door entirely open and walked into the darkened building, leaving Argis with the crowd of tense, silent citizens awaiting the fate of the one who entered the House of Horrors.

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><p>There were many things Silas was afraid of: drowning, Hagravens, early winters, bees... the list went on. Possibly haunted and cursed buildings? Nope, that wasn't on the list. He had very practical and reasonable fears which left no room for anything outrageous. Like murderous houses, for example.<p>

Oh, Silas had heard all about the 'House of Horrors', or as the placed was referred to. He may be from the farthest, backwater-ish Forsworn camp, but with the Forsworn having eyes and ears everywhere around the Reach, it wasn't too hard to pick up the rumors of the place. Apparently some strange things had gone on within the house before the Reachmen had taken over the place during the Great War, but nothing as serious as frantic screaming and no bodies coming back. The Hagravens had been asked about the place, and the general consensus was to leave the place alone until the Forsworn got Markarth back and they'd take care of it then. Nothing else was said about the place, and, well, what the Hags says, stays, and so the little trickle of the Forsworn rumor mill had successfully warned everyone of the place. It must've been pretty bad that even the non-native Nord populace steered clear, but even then Silas was not worried all that much. If it was something like a ghost he could simply backtrack outside where the daylight would weaken the spirit. A curse would have some sort of rune sequence or the like someplace, and that would only involve finding it and convincing a mage to come and fix it since he had no experience with that sort of thing. If it had something to do with Old Gods or Daedra, well, he had no idea what he was going to be looking for, but he was sure that if he came off with a positive, non-offending attitude that he may be overlooked.

Living by the skin of his teeth- that was Silas's life. And he couldn't want anything more.

He wasn't even doing this for the attention or for the thrill; he just wanted a house and this was it. He had grown tired of living in a Forsworn camp where it was cold and drafty and he had to sleep in piles of hay for his entire life and that he simply was not cut out to be a strong warrior raider or an aspiring Forsworn advocate trying to take back the Reach to the rightful owners and that his skill in jewelry crafting was all but wasted on his tribal people and he was really bad at following orders and kept wandering off to Gods knows where. There were other factors, but it would take too long to think of them all.

In any case, he had grown tired of the tribal Forsworn life and decided that he could afford to expand his horizons or however that saying went. Over the last couple of years he had simply honed his skill in jewelry crafting, traded with the Pussyfoot caravans that came by every once in awhile, and scrapped up enough money to buy a small house based on the cheapest ratings he had gathered on homes in the Reach. Oh, and normal clothes. They didn't fit him too well, and he certainly hated the boots, but at least he didn't get shot down by the guards at the front gate for mistaking him for a stray Forsworn so he couldn't complain much. So with money in hand, clothes on his back, and what little possessions he had, Silas had left his camp in the middle of the night just so he could get to Markarth that morning without being picked up by patrolling Reachmen. It had been heart-wrenching disappointing when he slowly realized that there was quite a few more people than he had realized that lived in Markarth, and that there was simply no place left besides the Silver-Blood Inn to live in and the Warrens was out of the question. That is, until he walked passed the abandoned house five or six times before remembering of its existence and after looking at the door for a good five minutes decided that through Oblivion or high water, he was going to sleep with an actual legit roof over his head tonight for the first time in his life and nothing was going to stop him.

Silas made sure he kept his argument short and to the point, leaving no room for any counter arguments. The plan worked quite nicely for the Jarl and his Steward, leaving the latter spluttering to his amusement, but Silas wasn't counting on the Jarl actually giving him the place for free. Without a single coin transferred, Silas had become a home owner. It didn't matter that it was a very dangerous and secretive building anymore; he was too thrilled by the idea that he could actually sleep without getting wet from rainwater to care about the trivial stuff. Not even the sullen, watchful crowds could bring his cheer down as he tampered with the lock, finding himself with no key to actually get into his new home. Home... he had a home now, a home that wasn't a tent or a pile of rocks and dirt!

And then...the lockpick broke. His only lockpick. He could've gone and asked for another, but with his luck he'd probably accidentally jam the thing with broken tips of metal and then it'd be impossible to save the lock that way. However he wasn't put out about it, as there was certainly another way to get the door open without picking the lock. He found this trick of popping the small box that contained the lock off of Dwemer doors when he accidentally got locked inside of a storage building during one of his wanderings and over time found when it was appropriate to do so. Any door that was in need of security had this small box for the lock which was screwed or bolted into place. By this time, the exposure to weather and age would've weakened the holdings of the lock and was merely staying in place by sheer willpower. Unless of course the Dwemer didn't want anyone to get into the building and welded the lock to the door, in which case would involve heating the entire lock up and in turn weakening the entire structure of the door. This particular door appeared to have been screwed in and not welded, and therefore removing the entire lock would be a bit easier than trying to pick the lock open.

Finding and talking to Argis had been a surprising bonus. Silas had expected no one to be that close to his proximity while he tinkered with the door, but the Nord proved him wrong. He recognized the man as one of the guards from the Understone Keep that had been mulling around the Jarl, so it was most likely that the Nord was there to make sure no one tried to physically persuade him not to mess around with the no longer abandoned house. But still, he had been far closer to him and any of the others residents of Markarth, who were quite content in taking shelter beside the Inn. The much taller man was definitely from the Reach, which was a pleasant surprise, and Silas found it easy to like the quieter man. He had even went over and gotten the requested tools for him! He didn't expect Argis to follow him into the house once he'd managed to pop the lock off, and so with a promise of seeing him a bit, the Breton stepped into the dark building.

Silas made a mental note to try and befriend the Nord once he had settled in.

The house was... empty. In truth Silas should've expected as much. There was a thick layer of dust and grime over the stone floors, swirling and dancing in the light that peeked through the open doorway while his feet disturbed its rest. There was no furniture or decorations aside from the metal structures of Dwemer construction. He approached one in the far corner, knowing what it was, and soon with a gentle fiddling, a wiggle, and a loud crackling snap, flipped all the strange, metallic lamps on. Ah, the joys of Dwemer technology, still functional after years of disuse. No candles or magelight needed.

With the lights successfully turned on, Silas could take in a better view of the room he was standing in. There was an empty fireplace just to the left of the door, a few built-in stone shelves along one of the walls, and another door leading elsewhere, but otherwise nothing out of the ordinary. It would be a good dining room/kitchen area, and Silas began his mental checklist of things to do by adding a "clean the fireplace" and a "better buy a broom" to the list.

The next room was also empty aside from the accumulating dust and another door. He supposed he could make this into a bedroom or a storage room, but he was overall surprised by how big the house actually was. It seemed tiny from the outside, but he already had two decent-sized room and he hadn't even opened up the next door- which he found out lead to a staircase that went to yet _another_ room and that had _two_ doors. Already he had more rooms than he knew what to do with and was busy adding bits of furniture and possible arrangements to his mental checklist.

The first door in this surprising third room found Silas with a even bigger surprise. Not only was the room not empty, but it was full of pipes and large metallic clawed basins. His face nearly cracked at how wide his grin had grown, and he would've shouted in victory if he didn't recall that he left the front door open and his shouting would've sent the people outside in a frenzy. But really, he could barely help it- he had a bathroom! And by twisting a few of the knobs and listening to the pipes groan and whine before water came out of the disused tap, Silas was nearly bursting with happiness. He didn't have to bathe in the cold river anymore!

He would've kissed all of the Dwemer if they were still around for being such technical geniuses.

Silas decided to let the water run for a bit to gets all the kinks out of its system while he went to explore the next door. This lead to another set of stone stairs, which in turn lead to- guess what?- another room. This room, aided by two flickering Dwemer lamps, seemed more like the storage area than any other part of the house. It was significantly cooler, and the walls were covered in large metallic shelves that stretched from floor to ceiling. There was a trail of dirt and rubble that trailed from his feet and to one of the walls, where the shelf had been ripped off and was sitting in a twisted pile on the floor. Someone, or something, had dug a decent sized hole in the wall of which a tunnel lead to who knows where.

Naturally Silas stuck his head into the entrance, peering into the darkness. There was a cool breeze coming from the hole, rustling his auburn hair with a slightly damp touch. It either went outside to one of the waterfalls or to an underground pool of some sort, he mused.

"Nothing like the present," Silas said to himself as he pressed a hand to the dirt wall and stepped into the darkness. Logically he should've gone back upstairs to his knapsack, pulled out some flint and lit a candle or a torch or something, but he was already here and he wanted to finish his checklist of things to do before going topside to order everything from the merchants. The worst that could happen was that he'd find a nice pit to fall to his death in or perhaps find himself face to face with some Dwemer construct, but the tunnel was a bit too narrow for anything huge and seemed too new to be done by any Dwemer. He went slow and steady, putting one foot in front of the other, feeling his way through the darkness. The tunnel dipped and turned, and so he followed, keeping one hand on the wall at all times.

There was a faint sliver of light, coming from the end of what seemed to be another bend. It wasn't very bright, but it was better than the total darkness before so Silas picked up his pace. Around the bend he found the source of light- there was a small hole high above him where he could hear the sounds of rushing water- but that wasn't what caught Silas' attention.

No, it was the obvious altar-looking thing that was at the very end of the tunnel, just inside the light coming from the hole in the roof that Silas noticed first. Most likely conclusion? Daedra or Old Gods. He wasn't sure, as he never did pay much attention to the whole religion/cult thing, but as he cautiously moved closer to the alter noticed a few things about it. The entire thing was metallic, covered in spikes and pointy bits. A weird, horned creature head with an intimidating basin/bowl thing was stuck on top of a spiny pillar. There was what could have been a mace or club-like weapon sticking out from the altar, but it was so ridiculously prickly that Silas had no idea how someone could physically wield it without accidentally stabbing the palms of their hands on it so he wasn't sure if it really was a weapon or part of the decoration. Before the whole altar on the floor was a suspiciously circular slab which did not fit the rest of the floor. Silas avoided stepping on it by walking around it, making sure he feet didn't make contact with the round slab as he moved to get a closer look at the altar.

"I'd be pissy too if my altar was this bad of a shape," Silas muttered, gingerly rubbing a finger over one of the creature-head's horns and examining the rust and tarnish that came off. There were even some mushrooms and moss growing around it and threatening to grow over it. The damp from the waterfall outside certainly wasn't helping matters.

"Be back in a sec," he told the altar, patting the horned head with a hand. It didn't say anything, and Silas went to scaling the crumbling rock and dirt wall towards the natural skylight to check out the situation. From what he could see (which wasn't much since he couldn't get his shoulders through the small opening), there was a little bit of space between the hole and the waterfall so there was no threat of having water pouring in through his basement, but the dampness was going to seep through and constantly rust out the altar thing. He was going to have to widen the hole, bring some wood or stone and make a makeshift roof to cover the hole to keep the rest of his house from getting damp. Maybe he could find some old Dwemer metal scraps or a shield to both block the hole and refrain from replacing it every other month. He added the thought to his checklist before climbing back down.

"Tell you what," Silas said to the altar once he was back on the ground. "I patch that hole up, clean and polish you to brand new and you don't go killing me off, alright?" If anyone was around they would've thought him crazy talking to an altar, and although Silas held the whole God/Daedra thing with a grain of salt he wasn't going to go and insult, neglect, or ignore them, especially if his house was on the line. He didn't get a response, not that he was expecting any, but nevertheless took the silence as an agreement and beamed at the altar, already adding the necessary items needed to clean it up to his mental checklist. Oh, and a quick snoop around one of the Divine's temples, just so he could make sure the altar in his basement wasn't one of them (he was pretty sure it wasn't- he didn't recall one of the Divines having such a fetish for spikes, but hey, he learned new things everyday).

With the promise of cleaning the altar up later, Silas navigated his way back through the tunnel to the last floor of his house. He shut the door after climbing the stairs to keep the wet damp air from sneaking further into his house and turned the water off in his bathroom (he couldn't help but giggle a little bit- he had a bathroom!). He was quite giddy when he burst out into the street, startling the crowds who were still mulling about the Inn. He paid them no mind, his gaze snapping to Argis who was still standing there the closest to him.

"Argis!" With three hops the small Breton was before the much larger Nord, positively beaming up at him. "You should've seen it, Argis! The Dwemer know how to make people happy! There's lights and plumbing and like four floors I have no idea what to do with and there's absolutely nothing in furniture so I'm going to have to buy everything and there's no windows but that's fine but really, you should've gone in with me!" Silas rambled on, bouncing on the balls of his feet before the Nord, who looked like he was having a bit of trouble keeping up with his excitement.

"There, er, wasn't any bodies, were there?" Argis said slowly, giving the open doorway behind Silas an apprehensive look.

"What? Oh, no, don't be silly. There was a hole in the bottom floor leading to the outside. Probably something was living in there that kept getting all the unfortunate people who couldn't figure out Dwemer locks. I didn't see any bears or saber cats or bits of bone and corpse, so either it hasn't been there for awhile or it drags them off to Gods knows where. Patch the hole up and no more deaths!" Silas felt a little bad for lying to the man, but it would draw unwanted attention to blurt out there was an altar to a spike-fetish being in his basement. Besides, if the altar hadn't been there his lie would've been the closest reasoning as to why people who went into the place never came back out.

Argis visibly slumped, relieved that the entire abandoned house business was something reasonable and possible to handle. Even most of the crowd seemed relieved by Silas' loud words, although a few remained skeptical, but no one seemed to outwardly argue with him. Saber cats and bears living in a hole in the wall was much more acceptable and less worrying than Gods and Daedra or curses of unknown sources.

"Right then!" Silas said, clapping his hands together. "I need to see a merchant! Got to buy all sorts of things. Want to come along, Argis? You know the prices around here better than I do."

It was suffice to say that Silas' six thousand was quickly spent, three or four people won quite a bit of money on the bet when the tiny Breton lasted the slotted week without a scratch and then some, and the tale of the House of Horrors was written off as merely a tale to scare children into going to bed at night. Still, one questioned remained, and throughout the following weeks would be brought up time and time again: who _is _Silas exactly?


	2. Chapter 2

**Three reviews and one follower was better than what I expected. Also this story's somehow in a community now, so I got that going for me, I guess. **

**I'm taking suggestions on what to put into the summary of this story, as well as a change in genre or characters. I just threw something in there because I felt that I needed to, but if the genre doesn't seem to fit the story, please tell me what to do to fix it. I will also take any spelling/grammar corrections that you find in the story, as I am quite bad at locating them. Thank you.**

**Comments to reviewers: **

**To Iron Stag:**

**I agree with you on your proposal. I admit I may have been a bit overenthusiastic about the lore and explanations. I had removed them from the first chapter and will keep explanations and lore in future chapters to a minimum outside the chapter itself.**

**To the Guest called Chad Warden:**

**I am sorry you feel that way. I used those terms as a way to distinguish different races. It is like calling Mer 'elves', or the Khajiit 'cats', or even Dunmer 'grey skins'. I did not intend on using it as a way to make Silas 'interesting'; I use it as a different way of expression that just happened to be unique to Silas' character thus far. A further explanation as to why these terms are used is presented in the third segment of this chapter.  
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**Liking or disliking my choice in character name is a personal opinion. Not all names can be extravagant or unique, and I as a writer was able to use my independence to name my character a name that just happened not to be anything special. I happened to like the name 'Silas' because of its simplicity. I could have used any variation of the name such as Silvanus, Silouanos, Sylvian, Silvano, or any other related name, yet I choose Silas simply because I could.**

**I would like to correct you; I did not say he had no potential of being a fighter, I said, and I quote "he simply was not cut out to be a strong warrior raider or an aspiring Forsworn advocate". This does not mean Silas cannot fight, it merely means he lacks either the skill currently or the motivation for what the Forsworn are looking for. Being a fighter is different than being a Forsworn or a warrior. A farmer can be a fighter, but it takes skill, and dedication to be a warrior or anything that the Forsworn expects. This may be just an opinion of definition of the words themselves, but I find 'fighter' and 'warrior' similar, but not interchangeable. Nevertheless, anyone with enough training can learn to wield a weapon properly enough to do some damage. This also doesn't mean he cannot use a bow or be a decent archer. True it is not expected of him to have a mastery at it, but fighting and archery are two different things, and learning to use a bow can be learned outside of battling or sparring unlike hand-to-hand or bladed weapons. It takes a different set of skills to use a bow in comparison to a sword, and a bow is not quite an aggressively personal weapon as a sword is since it is a ranged weapon. An arrow can be shot once and then the archer can flee without any confrontation whereas a sword, mace, club, or any other non-ranged weapon requires the wielder to get close and face the target head-on. Also, he was Forsworn; knowing how to use a bow at least semi-effectively for hunting and bringing food to the table is pretty much mandatory. **

**Besides, if he couldn't fight and can't use a bow, what else is he supposed to do? Throw forks at people?  
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**I do not see how my gender has to do with knowing lore. It merely means I know how to look up certain topics and read the articles already written on the subject. I personally find lore and history interesting, and it wouldn't do any justice in ignoring it. However, I am no longer including lore in the discussion at the end of the chapters as I am going to incorporate it into the story itself now, so please look out for that.  
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**In any case, I'm glad you'd want to continue reading this story, even if my character's utter shit.**

**To the Guest called Berlin:**

**It's nice to know you appreciate my work despite the fact you have no knowledge of the topic this story is written on. It is alright that you will not read it because of the lack of knowledge, but it's good to see that you are interested in reading future stories from me. **

**I'll admit this story is more of a personal endeavor than anything. I desired to write an Elder Scrolls story since I found this site, but I simply lacked the knowledge to do so then. Now that I have played the game and researched a bit on the lore and history, I have decided it was time to give it a shot. **

**Don't worry, though, I have been planning on starting a new story in one of the previous fandoms I've worked in. I promised to another that I would write one, and with positive feedback from readers of my previous story on the subject, I will in fact give them what they asked of me. I have also been given the okay from the one whose idea I'm going to be starting the story off on, and I basically wrote the synopsis of the first chapter in a PM to a friend of mine, so now it is a matter of me getting off my lazy arse and filling it out with detail. **

**Disclaimer: I do NOT own the Elder Scrolls series, the items, the characters, or the lore involved with it, nor do I own any mods that are mentioned within the story, both intentionally and not. This story is to not earn profit, but for the mere amusement of the writer and the readers who stumble upon it.**

**Warnings: Possibly some language, spelling and grammar errors, and a lot more text.**

**Notice: Some characters' personalities may be slightly altered from in-game and history/background on some characters has been given at the author's discretion due to lack of any both in-game and in research. This chapter, like the first, was written in segments, so some things may not make sense. This is an accident, and please point any issues out to me so I can correct it. Thank you.  
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><p><span>Settling In<span>

Aicantar didn't mind Markarth. Sure he and his uncle were the only elves in the entire city at the moment, and Altmer for that matter, but neither the Nords or the Reachmen bothered them much. It had been quite unnerving for Aicantar at first, leaving the warm isle of Alinor and being dropped unceremoniously in the most backwater savage part of Tamriel, but over time he had found small blessings of the ancient Dwemer city.

He hadn't known at first, but his parents had sent him to Markarth to keep him out of the claws of the Thalmor. Not all Altmer were supportive of the power hungry militaristic entity that ruled Alinor with an iron fist, but there was little they could do outright against it. Everything had to be subtle, and sending Aicantar to study the Dwemer in Skyrim under the watchful eye of Calcelmo was the only thing his parents could do to keep him safe from their own people. Aicantar did not blame his parents. He was a researcher first and foremost, and he had not a fighting bone in his body. He couldn't bear the thought of having to train to hurt people, especially for a cause he did not fully support. The Thalmor would've destroyed him if he remained in Alinor, and his family would have been disgraced for his lack of national pride.

That didn't mean he was out of sight from the Thamlor, though. Markarth had always been a host of a ranking member of the Dominion ever since shortly after the Markarth Incident. However, Aicantar was under the apprenticeship of his uncle, and Calcelmo wasn't one to let others browbeat him into submission. The older Altmer was suspected of letting loose a Dwemer Spider into the last Justiciar's room when the other continued to badger the scholar into forcing Aicantar to join the Thalmor cause. There was no proof of his hand in the matter, and the Justiciar had faced an untimely death by a surprise Forsworn attack just outside the city so the matter had been dropped entirely. Calcelmo and Aicantar could breathe easy, at least for a short while before the next batch of "superiority bred Mer" was assigned. It had been half a year since the death of the previous Thalmor resident, and Aicantar was suspecting another Justiciar to arrive before the month was out.

Despite the distasteful actions of the Thalmor and the obvious disapproval and distrust of them from the populace, Aicantar and Calcelmo were treated quite cordially in comparison by the residents of Markarth. The Reachmen had no qualms against the Elves themselves; only their positions on current political matters and actions to their brethren matter to the native Bretons. Both Altmer men were strictly neutral on the matter of the Forsworn and who should own Markarth, so they were left with relative peace by the Reachmen. The Nords tended to be a bit more crude to them, both for their Elven heritage and their reliance on magic over brawn, but they were quick to respect Calcelmo when one Nord guard found out the hard way that not only was the old scholar a master of the arcane, but an expert in hand-to-hand combat as well. Taking the warning to heart, the Nords avoided messing around with Calcelmo and his research, which naturally included Aicantar as well. A grudging respect was better than anything when magic-hating Nords were involved.

However, it seemed that one resident missed the memo of not touching Calcelmo's stuff when Aicantar went down to the Nchuand-Zel side of the Understone Keep early one morning to find the research area a complete mess.

All the scraps of Dwemer metal and items had pulled off the tables and piled in a heap on the floor in no particular order like they had been on the tables. The tables were covered in berries, leaves, flower petals, bits of dried flesh, and various other alchemy ingredients, each separated into piles. Any free space that wasn't filled with alchemy ingredients was filled with empty vials, corks, bits of wax and filled potion bottles. The alchemy table had a few semi-crushed leaves and berry juice across its surface while a green-blue liquid bubbled inside of the glass apparatus. Sitting on the floor in front of the alchemy table, his back to the boiling potion in the works, was an auburn-haired young man, bent over one of Calcelmo's Dwemer Spiders. The entire thing seemed to have been dismantled and in the process of being rebuilt, although from the furrowed brows and a handful of screws, it seemed that the man mysteriously found himself with more parts than he started out with.

Aicantar dropped the armful of books and notes he had brought with him, the dull thud and rustling of paper seeming loud in the large ruin despite the humming, grinding, and hissing of Dwemer technology and rushing water forever running throughout the place. The young man's head snapped up, mismatched eyes staring straight at bright orange, widening slightly in surprise at the arrival of the Altmer.

"Oh no," Aicantar groaned in dismay, taking in once more at the mess that one Breton had made. "Uncle's going to be furious." With long strides he was around the cluttered table, taking hold of the small Breton's shirt and pulling him to his feet despite the sound of protest coming from the intruder. "You shouldn't even be here! Clean up and get out before Uncle sees you! He'll gut you when he finds out you're messing with his research!"

"I was just using the alchemy table," the Breton whined, his cheeks smeared with oil puffing out slightly in protest, but he had begun to put all his spread out ingredients into a satchel nevertheless. "The Hag wasn't open and proper alchemy tables are so expensive..."

"That's not the point," Aicantar said, exasperated at the Breton, lending a hand in helping the other stuff his alchemy ingredients into the bag. The troublemaker had similar features as the young man he heard bought the house linked with mysterious deaths and disappearances two weeks ago, but being new and ignorant wasn't going to save the lad from Calcelmo's wrath. "My uncle leaves things in specific places and doesn't let anyone other than myself touch anything on his personal tables- the ones you cleared off and tinkered with! Now you must leave while you still have legs to do so!" Aicantar couldn't bear to see what his uncle would do to this Breton if he walked in seeing the mess the small man had done to his research, even if the Breton was an idiot and deserved whatever punishment Calcelmo delivered.

"Yellow-belly's uncle doesn't like his stuff being touched- got it," the Breton said in the same tone one would use to describe the weather and without even a hint of a bigoted slur in his use of such a bizarre word to describe Aicantar. "And I suppose that's him right there, right?"

"What?"

Aicantar's head snapped around, his neck twisting painfully as he stared at the entrance to the research site. There stood his uncle, blue hood pulled over his head as always, his hands hidden in the sleeves of his robes. He stood with silent authority, his golden eyes seeming to glow in the flickering Dwemer lights as he watched the pair of them with a hooded expression.

Aicantar's heart dropped to the bottom of his stomach. A grumpy Calcelmo he could deal with; an angry one he could tolerate. But a silent one? Calcelmo was always talking, always muttering, either about research or how incompetent the dig team was. By Auri-El, he talked in his sleep! Yet here he was, with not a word on his lips, giving such a silent disapproval look that made Aicantar want to curl up and weep.

Something began to whistle on the alchemy table. Neither of the younger males made a move towards it.

Calcelmo removed himself from the doorway, walking with a slow, steady pace towards the chaos that used to be his research. Aicantar quivered, biting his lip to keep himself from whimpering. The Breton, although unaware of the severity of the situation, seemed to have some common sense by keeping his mouth shut. His face was slacked into a blank expression while his eyes held a faint curious look as they followed the elder Altmer around the table as the Elf assessed the damage in silence.

Calcelmo paused in his search, his eyes going from the two younger men to the half empty table before turning to the pile of things that had been on the table that evening before, then to the half assembled Dwemer Spider. He gazed at the Spider for a moment before going back to looking at the contents of the table, plucking a filled vial from the wooden surface and popping the cork off. He brought the mouth to his nose, gingerly sniffing the potion for quality, pausing for a moment to give the bottle an unreadable look before resealing it once more.

"And you are...?" Calcelmo drawled the words out once he set the potion vial back down, his golden eyes turning to fixate on the short, curly-haired Breton. In comparison to Aicantar's thin, tree-like frame standing beside him, the Breton was positively tiny. Even Calcelmo, who was only slightly shorter than his nephew, towered over the young man, who barely came up to Calcelmo's chest. Both Altmer had seen Bosmer taller than this fellow, and they weren't known for their vertical endowment.

Yet the Breton did not seem intimidated by the Mer. Instead he smiled cheerfully up at Calcelmo and gave a full-hearted salute. "I'm Silas, Mr. Yellow-belly, sir," he said, still without any disrespect that a word being used in derogatory form would have when he repeated the strange name he seemed to have labeled the Altmer as. Still the word made Aicantar cringe inwardly, dreading the reaction his uncle would have.

Calcelmo only frowned in disapproval before casting his eyes once more on the mess the tiny man had made. "You put me a day behind, forcing me to reorganize," he stated, his tone clear in his irritation of being put back from his research just to clean up.

At least Silas had the brains to look a bit sheepish at the scolding, the small man bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet while running his fingers through his auburn locks. His mismatched eyes drifted from Calcelmo to the floor to complete the apologetic look. It didn't win him any favors from Calcelmo, though.

"You," the elder Altmer began, now standing before the Breton, jabbing the short man in the chest with a sharp finger. "Are going to clean up your mess. I want all the potions you made and all your reagents in that bag, and it better be left on this table when you leave. And scrub off the alchemy table! You're going to ruin it at this rate!" Said alchemy table was now smoking, the liquid long since boiled out. The Breton yelped and dove towards the smoking, ruined potion, not even arguing with Calcelmo about leaving his entire stock of ingredients behind, although he probably picked up on the fact that arguing with the old Altmer was a very poor thing to do.

"And you," Calcelmo wasn't done, turning to jab Aicantar in the chest as well. "Are going to help me reorganize!"

"I'm really sorry, Uncle," Aicantar whispered as the two Mer began placing the discarded Dwemer items back onto the table. "It wasn't like this when I retired last night...I didn't mean for this to happen."

The old Altmer let out a tired sigh, a heavy hand resting against Aincantar's shoulder. "I was expecting something like this to happen for a few days now," he murmured to his nephew. "Bothela had come in and practically ordered the Jarl to keep a guard in front of her place at all times. Our friend here seemed to have broken in during the night just to use her alchemy table and made a dreadful mess of things. Nearly set her shop on fire. It was only a matter of time he would come seeking another place to muck around with alchemy." He pursed his lips together at the thought. "I had planned accordingly and begun taking my most sensitive works to my rooms. Who knows what the lad would've done to that..."

"You're keeping his alchemy ingredients just so he won't be able to come back?" Aicantar asked softly, his eyes flickering to look over his uncle's shoulder at the small Breton, who had taken the glass components of the alchemy table to the pools of water collecting at the sides of the stream running through the place to scrub. Forcing the Breton to hand over everything was a bit much, as there was a lot of value in just alchemy ingredients and tools. It certainly wouldn't make the Breton happy, but perhaps it would make him think twice before returning to tamper with the Dwemer researchers. Still, Aicantar couldn't help but feel a little bad for the young man. Calcelmo could be so harsh at times.

"It will slow him down, but he'll be back again." Calcelmo didn't seem pleased at that. "He'll be a menace, mark my word."

"He did a decent job at reconstructing the Spider, though," Aicantar added, biting his lip as he thought. "Perhaps we can ask him to explore further of the Ruin. It will keep him busy and out of the way. He seems like someone who needs to be doing something to keep him out of trouble."

"Young people," Calcelmo muttered dryly. "Have too much energy!" The corners of his mouth did twitch into a faint smile, which made Aicantar sigh in relief at successfully getting his uncle away from the silent, angry side and somewhat back to his usual self.

Aicantar knew better than to expect the bettering mood it to last, as the tinkling of breaking glass and a curse sounded from the nearby pool. Calcelmo was all over Silas, swatting the boy over the head for being so clumsy and to watch his language, the Breton clutching his head pouting over the abuse. At least Calcelmo knew how to deal with rambunctious, messy Bretons, as Aicantar certainly didn't.

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><p>Hroki made a face at Hogni Red-Arm as the man butchered a goat in the middle of the marketplace. The young Nord never could seem to find any escape from disgusting smells and sights in this dreadful metal and stone city. She was tired of dodging drunks in the Silver-Blood Inn, listening to her parents yell at each other, and seeing Hogni decapitate unfortunate animal corpses in public. Her parents refused to let her outside the city walls, claiming it was too dangerous with the "savage Forsworn running about", and the guards wouldn't let her venture down to the blacksmith's forge or the Warrens, also claiming it was too dangerous for a young girl like her to be at. She was twelve, almost thirteen for Divines' sake! She could take care of herself!<p>

With a huff the girl turned away from the bloody sight of butchered meat. Hogni was the dirtiest, smelliest person in all of the Reach. There was something about the man that made her skin crawl. Even looking at him made her want to jump through one of the many waterfalls the city sported. No one could butcher meat and smile at the same time. It was like he enjoyed chopping the legs off of goats and deer, and he seemed too eager to try to get her to come closer and appraise his cuts. The look in his eye made her think he'd want her to be the one on his chopping block instead. Just...no...

Aside from the crazed butcher, the majority of Markarth seemed content on ignoring Hroki. She may be young, but she wasn't stupid or blind to the political and racial tensions within the city. The Bretons, being Forsworn or not, were always on edge with the Nord populace, and the Nords suspected all Bretons as Forsworn. Both sides heckled the other in trying to push a member too far and causing them to get thrown into the Cidhna Mines. However, there seemed to be an unspoken rule of not involving children in this struggle, and so many conversations were cut short when a child came within earshot or the younglings herded out the door to "let the adults talk". Not that there were many children in Markarth anyway- aside from Hroki and her brother Hreinn, there were eight other children, and three of them were still babes. The other five were younger than Hroki; the oldest only just turned eight the past week, and she could only do so much with them before their childish antics got boring. There was a big gap in age between her and Hreinn, who was fifteen, to the next youngest- Muiri, who was twenty-two, leaving Hroki and her brother the only adolescents in Markarth.

Well, that happened to be the case until the neighbor across the bridge moved in.

Hroki had only gotten a glimpse of the young man the day he arrived, due to Ma herding both herself and her brother back into the Inn while everyone else crowded outside to watch. He seemed quite young, and Argis had said when he came in that evening that the Breton was only nineteen. He was pretty young to be buying a house, or at least that's what Ma had muttered, but Hroki didn't understand. Nineteen was old enough, wasn't it? Even if he did buy the creepy haunted house that she wasn't even allowed to walk in front of (not that she wanted to anyway). If he had the coin, why couldn't he buy a place? It made no sense to her, but it probably was some adult thing.

Since then all she heard of the newcomer was what the patrons of the Inn said of him. Apparently he had almost set the Hag's Cure on fire in the middle of the night when he broke in to use the alchemy table of all things, lent a hand at the forge for a good part of the afternoon before being chased off by Ghorza for humming too much, although he returned the next day and was allowed to work so long as he didn't continue his humming, disappeared outside the city for an entire day, only to show up the following morning with an entire bag of mountain flowers, making flower crowns for the little children which had quickly turned into a game into seeing how many crowns they could sneak on other people's heads (she had seen some of the guards come in off their shifts with little flower crowns on their helmets, unaware as to why their comrades were snickering). Hroki also heard that he found the ire of the court wizard, Calcelmo, but her Pa said that if he had, he certainly wouldn't be walking. He also seemed to have a strange way of addressing people, with one guard saying he called the traveling Khajiit "Pussyfoots" and wouldn't refer to them anything else other than their names. The caravan didn't seem offended by it, in fact the guard said they greeted him by name and let the Breton stay with them until they moved on to Whiterun. Argis seemed to be the best source of information about the new fellow, Silas his name was if she remembered correctly, as the Breton tended to hang around the quiet Nord when he was off duty. Argis didn't seem to mind much, if his lack of complaints when he was in the Inn had anything to go by. However, it was a bit hard to base anything off of Argis, as the man neither complained much about anything or anyone, unlike many others who were quick to find faults in people.

Silas, however, seemed to be a conundrum. Hroki noticed how many people just didn't seem to know what to think of the young man. He was kind, friendly, excitable, and ready to help around the forge or carry things up and down the many stairs and slopes of Markarth. Yet, he was also a troublemaker; breaking into the Hag, almost creating fires, moving things around or messing up people's work, and seeming to get under foot on more than one occasion. However, as Argis said; "he's fine if he's busy". Silas seemed to be a kind of person that just had to keep occupied, and if he wasn't given something to do, he had to find it himself, which often lead to trouble.

Ma seemed it best to keep both her and her brother from ever meeting the new neighbor and kept them busy washing dishes, blankets, scrubbing counters, sweeping floors, and other menial tasks that repeated from day to day. The young man had yet to set foot into the Silver-Blood Inn, so Ma had gotten her way in keeping her children from meeting this strange new person. She was convinced that the Breton was up to no good, while Pa just laughed and said that he was just a young man trying to find his place in the world. Ma had smacked him in the rear with a wet cloth for that, and the two had found yet another thing to argue about.

Today her parents had chased her outdoors, obviously to have an "adult talk", which meant they were going to argue about the Forsworn again. The marketplace was a bit too crowded for her tastes, as it was a nice sunny day of the summer, and Hogni was making a mess of his stall again, so Hroki made her way up the many steps towards higher ground near the Understone Keep. There were many places that overlooked the city from there, and perhaps she could find something to do up there.

It was up one flight of stairs when Hroki spotted the head of curly auburn hair that she had seen a glimpse of two weeks prior, the man perched on one of the low stone walls that separated the road from a drop off straight down. His legs swung lazily over the edge as his fingers twisted and fiddled with something in his grasp. Curious, Hroki ignored Ma's previous warning of not associating with the man, and instead leaned against the stone wall beside the man, leaning forward slightly to see what he was working on. He couldn't be all that bad, could he?

"What are you doing?" she asked him, still trying to peer over him to see. The man paused in his work to look at her, and she was a bit taken aback when she noticed how two colored eyes returned her gaze. She couldn't remember anyone having two different eye colors like that- it was both pretty and strange. Was this why Ma didn't want her or her brother talking to this man? Because his appearance was strange?

"Just a little trinket," Silas said, his lips forming a warm smile as he held up the object of his interest for her to see. It was silver, spun into a thin wire and twisted into a spiraling shape. A bright blue sapphire was nestled in the middle, polished well until it sparkled in the sunlight.

"It's beautiful," Hroki exclaimed, her eyes wide as she looked at it. It was very simplistic, and not very bulky unlike other jewelry she had seen made around Skyrim. Pa always joked that Skyrim jewelry was made big and clunky so the thick fat fingers of strong Nord women didn't have to fumble with small clasps and ties. Then again, he was always saying that while staring straight at Ma, and she always went off on a tirade afterwards. She had seen a few pieces made from Cyrodiil, and it was true they weren't as big as Skyrim made, but they were a bit too gaudy in extra gems and fancy patterns. This piece however was small, no bigger the size of a coin, and it certainly wasn't gaudy.

"You think so?" the Breton asked, holding the small piece up to his eyes. "It's a bit lopsided, but if I take it apart I'll have to use another piece of wire, and that'd just be a waste..." He hummed to himself in thought before shrugging. "Bah, if you say it's good, it must be good. Why question the expert?"

Hroki nodded at his assessment, smiling at his antics. She couldn't remember the last time someone took her word for something. Her parents were too busy yelling at each other, her brother keeping out of it, and everyone else simply did not care. It was nice having someone accept her opinion.

Something fell over her head and around her neck, causing Hroki to jump and look down. On her chest was the small silver and sapphire trinket, now hanging on a black cord that was tied around her neck. She blinked at it for a moment before looking up at Silas' smiling face, opening her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Did he really just give her this?

"Think of it as a token of our new-found friendship," he said with a grin. "It's my first piece since I moved in, and someday it may be worth a fortune."

"T-thank you," Hroki stammered, touching her new necklace just to make sure it was real. It was still warm from being in his hands, and the smooth metal told her that, yes, it was really there. She didn't understand why he just gave her such a thing for free. The sapphire alone would cost a pretty coin, but here he was just passing it off to her without thinking twice. Not even Ma let her touch any of her jewelry in fear of her losing it, but yet she was simply given one, just like that. Was he really that pleased that she thought the piece as beautiful? It was so strange, but Hroki couldn't bring herself to ask him why.

Silas rocked back, his lips pulling back even more as he outright grinned at her. "Besides, I had to make up for the awesome flower crown competition you missed! We could've pegged even more people with your help!"

"Oh, I heard all about that," Hroki laughed, glad that the topic had changed. "You should have seen some of the off-duty guards' faces when they pulled off their helmets to eat and found flowers all over them!"

"I missed it? That's such a pity! I really need to get myself to the Inn sometime. Just haven't found the time. I heard your Ma makes the greatest beef stew."

"Really? I must tell her that. She thinks you're a troublemaker and up to no good, but perhaps you can butter your way into her good graces."

"We can't have that, now, can we? I'll go right now and tell her!" Silas hopped off his stone perch- Hroki vaguely noting that she was taller than he was by a small margin- and headed down the steps. "Well, come on! You can be my backup! I can always tell her I'm going to take you away and ship you off to Elsweyr if complimenting her food doesn't work. I'm sure she'd love that."

Hroki couldn't help but laugh and follow after the man, the thoughts of the spontaneous gift forgotten for the moment. Really, she couldn't see why Ma was so against him.

* * *

><p>Nepos the Nose leaned back in his seat with a sigh, setting the leafs of paper into his lap. Work never seemed to cease for the old Breton, not since the Markarth Incident, and he was weary. On one end he was slipping orders and reports to and from Madanach and the Forsworn in and outside the city, while on the other he was under constant pressure from Thonar Silver-Blood. The Nord used the old Breton's position both with the natives of the Reach and the entire population of Markarth in keeping them toe the line and to dig up dirt on the citizens in order to use against them later if they happen to be against the Silver-Blood's agenda. Nepos himself was pinned between his loyalty to Madanach and the information Thonar had that kept Nepos under his payroll. The politically powerful Nord would have had Nepos either killed or in prison with Madanach when the Nords retook Markarth if the man hadn't found use for the old Breton outside of prison and still alive. He was fairly certain Madanach's imprisonment instead of execution was the Silver-Bloods' idea as well, but he had yet to get confirmation from either party on that, so he kept it quiet.<p>

Sometimes he wondered if it had been a good idea to stave his death and work for a Daedra incarnate. Ever since the Markarth Incident, the Silver-Bloods had all but bought up over half of the city. Their greedy claws had sunk in deep, now eager to buy up land even outside of Markarth. Almost all of the guard were under their command, and the Jarl, despite his dislike of the family, could do little against them. Everything from the mine to the smelter to the Inn was owned by the Silver-Bloods, and any business that wasn't, like the Hag's Cure, was constantly heckled to pay a "tribute", which was nothing more than a fee to keep the Silver-Bloods' men from tearing the business apart and chasing the owner out of the city. Anyone who said anything against the family found themselves a little roughed up, or their homes robbed and trashed, or rumors spread against them as blatant warnings. Despite it not being a direct topic of conversation, most newcomers were quick to pick up on the monopoly the family had on the city and knew better than to question it. As long as no one talked about the Silver-Bloods in any offensive way, or better yet, not at all, the citizens and the guards of Markarth were cordial to outsiders.

To each other there were jabs and harsh remarks, but most issues were dealt behind doors. The Nords and the Bretons always butted heads, and there had been some physical clashes in the past, but after a few citizens had wound up in the Cidhna Mine, both Nord and Breton alike, the clashes had died down to a more vocal standpoint. Thonar did not care how many people got thrown into the Mine or how many got killed as long as his political and business enemies were taken care of and silver was coming out of the mines. To those who had uses, Thonar knew what to say to keep one or both conflicting sides from doing anything too drastic.

Thonar prided himself with the information he had on all the citizens of Markarth. With help from Nepos' connections and his own, the man could find anything about a person, from their birthday to when they lost their first tooth to how many sweetrolls they had purchased in their lifespan- Thonar knew, and if he didn't, he would quickly find out.

Such was his way that when someone took up residence in the abandoned house just outside the market square, Thonar put his feelers out. He needed to know where this Silas character stood, what his goals were, what Gods he worshiped, everything. When his Nord connections came up short, Thonar went to Nepos. After all, Silas was a Breton and a Reachman- he probably was a Forsworn, and Nepos knew almost all the members of the Forsworn, both in and outside the city.

However, Silas was one he did not know or had heard of, at least, not at first. As he delved into the reports from the Forsworn camps around the Reach, he noticed that there was one person who fit the description of Silas.

A young man dubbed "The Straggler" had been seen by many of the camps and even found within some of the camps from time to time before disappearing again throughout the years. The first sighting had been around nine years ago, when the young man had just been a lad, wandering aimlessly throughout the hills of the Reach. Several sightings throughout the year had placed the lad traveling from the south-west region to the far northern end and possibly into Haafingar before he was spotted back into the south-western part of the Reach again and coincidentally disappearing for several months. It wasn't until the following year and after over two dozen sightings by several camps before any contact was made with the lad.

The boy had been quite friendly and by speaking to him proved the previously speculated theory that the boy was in fact from a camp in the south-western region. This was a startling fact, as that end of the Reach had been controlled by a sect of Forsworn who felt that Manadach should not continue being King while in prison and a new ruler should be established. This sect of Forsworn had been secluded from the main group of Forsworn and were quite aggressive to anyone and anything not part of their group. Contact by anyone within the rebelling sect had been impossible, and any notes or conversations picked up by the few spies who managed to survive getting out of the region proved just as impossible to solve. The notes had been written so strangely, using words and combinations that made absolutely no sense.

The Straggler had been quite friendly and helpful, though. Throughout the nine years he had given some definitions on a few words and happily explained some things. His people both wrote and spoke in a sort of code that made sure anyone who happened to listen in or steal their plans would have problems understanding it. Words that he used even in everyday speech, such as the terms for other races, were part of the sect's code and were used by everyone in his camp on a daily basis. The term "Pussyfoot" wasn't just used to call Khajiit- it was a term used specifically for the Khajiit caravans- the only group that did seem to be on peaceful terms with the rebelling sect and was allowed to travel through their lands without harm. Khajiit bandits or any who were not traveling with a caravan were dubbed "Dog Bait".

Only the Khajiit seemed to have any secondary term to distinguish allies from foes. Other terms used were "Soot-skins", or "Sooties" for short, were Dunmer, "Green-thumbs" for Orcs, "Yellow-bellies" for Altmer, "Brown-noses" for Redguards, "Mud-puppies" for Argonians, "Frost-bites" for Nords, and "Tree-ears" for Bosmer. It was uncertain what term was used for Imperials, but a group of Legionnaires was apparently called a "gaggle". Bretons also had uncertain terms, but the number of times the words "Reachmen bastards" showed up among the notes, it was quite likely that was the term used to refer to Forsworn who were still loyal to Manadach.

This information, along with several other terms, Nepos had been able to roughly translate a few notes claimed from the rebelling south-western side and managed to warn many of the camps of attacks or spies.

The Straggler himself had first been thought as a spy, but over time the reports coming to Nepos claimed that he was quite harmless. Despite his constant disappearing and reappearing act, he spoke without acid in his tone to the other Forsworn, and was genuinely curious of their stories and actions taken against the Nords. He didn't say much about his own camp life or his family, but he would say a few things about himself. For one he loved alchemy, but he would rather experiment than to follow a recipe, which lead to his eternal banning from ever practicing alchemy within the camp. He disliked raiding or attacking random people traveling the roads, and often wandered off while on patrol to avoid duties or just getting bored with routine, not returning back to the camp for weeks at a time. This gained his "Straggler" title even amongst his own people, although the term was used with more disappointment and frustration than anything. He even claimed he wandered all the way to Falkreath once, which hadn't surprised the one who wrote the report on that. To try to keep him close to home his camp had made him take care of the children, but even then the lad found ways to escape and wander off to explore the Reach.

In the more recent reports, the Straggler had been asking around for loose bits of string, old silver and gold chains, or other bits of metal and gems when he visited the other camps. When asked why, they had only received a mischievous grin.

More pressing was the Straggler's report of his camp seeking assistance from their distant brethren on the High Rock side of the mountains. There was a note of worry that they were aiming to gain more bodies to outright assault the other Forsworn camps; to persuade them by force to reject Manadach. The Straggler also said that his camp was growing, even picking up bandits to join their side. It was unsettling, and Nepos worried that if Manadach did not leave Cidhna Mine soon, the Reach was soon going to be a battlefield. However, he hadn't told Thonar yet, as the man's main concern was Markarth, not the rest of the Reach as of yet, so what he didn't know wouldn't hurt him... at least at the moment.

Then about half a year ago, the Straggler had dropped off the face of the earth and Silas emerged from the wilds of the Reach two weeks prior, settling into Markarth. This wasn't just a mere coincidence, and comparing the description of the Straggler to the description of Silas, Nepos was a hundred percent sure that Silas was in fact Silas the Straggler, the duty-shirking Forsworn from the sect that did not toe the line Manadach or Thonar had set. The two-toned eyed certainly settled any discrepancies, as they were unique to both the Straggler and Silas only.

However, this brought up several problems. Silas was essentially a wild card in the city. He held no loyalty to Manadach or to any of the Forsworn in the city, so he was out of Nepos' control. He didn't seem bothered by the presence of the Nords and had no sense of self-preservation if the case of him mucking around with Calcelmo's things was true. He would and will find trouble with the Silver-Bloods eventually. His reason why he moved into Markarth was also unknown, to Thonar's chagrin. With his family unknown and his alliances unclear, Thonar would have little to no blackmail material on the lad. It would be hard to find anyone to outright go against him either, as he had made friends with both Nords and Bretons alike. Ghorza and the Altmer researchers didn't seem to have any grudges against the man either other than being irritated with his carelessness and inability to stand still and do work quietly. Bothela perhaps, but she had found quite a bit of coin on her counter after the alchemy incident to help cover the cost of damage, so she was a bit lenient on the man now. Even the guards under the Silver-Blood pay had little to say against the man, as he often sat out and chatted with them at their posts during the the night when the rest of the city had gone to sleep. He even brought them food sometimes, if rumors were true. In a city that ran off of blood, silver, and political and racial tensions, Silas somehow could make anyone's day just a tiny bit lighter with his antics or assistance.

Still, that wouldn't make Thonar happy. He would want the man under his thumb or intimidated into place. Nepos let out a small sigh as he reached over and grabbed a quill to ink out some notes. He was going to need someone to watch Silas for information, both for the Silver-Bloods and for the Forsworn. Perhaps he should ask Manadach on what to do with the young man. Information on the rebelling Forsworn sect would certainly be helpful when the King managed to get out of prison. Perhaps by then they would know how to deal with them. But that didn't fix the fact that Silas was a free man in a city full of slaves, and free men tended to get into trouble.

Nepos could only hope that neither men he was forced to serve would try to kill the lad.

* * *

><p><strong>Notes:<strong>

**I hope the histories/backgrounds of some characters make some sense. If they don't, I'm sorry. I just wanted to include some characters that do not get enough screen time in other stories or were just background characters in the game. Except Nepos- I included him because I wished to get into Silas' background a bit more.  
><strong>

**If there's any other characters you want to see, please tell me. I'll be happy to try to incorporate them into the story. But they'll have to wait until chapter 4; next chapter's superiorly-bred Mer only. **

****Also, if there's any mistake of writing "Calcelmo" as "Calcemo", please tell me. I wrote it as the latter throughout the entire chapter before I felt the need to look it up and realized I spelled it wrong the entire time. Another reason why I like Silas' name- it's easy to spell.  
><strong>**


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